You don't have to be an expert on politics to understand that BBC Question Time has become incredibly right-wing biased over the last dec...

I’m reluctant to immediately fly off the handle and start ranting about pro Tory bias, but this looks a bit dodgy. I do find it somewhat difficult to believe that the team who run the show don’t do any sort of checks on who is allowed into the audience for QT, let alone the people they actually let ask questions.

Having a Tory councillor open the show but not announcing him as such is a bit off in my book.

Edit: a mate just pointed out to me that they usually try.and get a fair split of political persuasions amongst the audience, so surely they must have some idea who they’re inviting to join the audience.

I agree with May here - I hate debates for a variety of reasons. I guess labour value a leadership debate so much because it’s an opportunity to expose May’s “Strong and Stable” angle and negate the alleged media ‘bias’ with a well watched and fair platform then again in my view, her having a poor showing on TV leaders debate isn’t an indication of her ability to perform as PM.

Television debates are flawed, but they are pretty much the best opportunity for candidates to speak their mind directly to a large audience with minimal opportunity for media bias or distortion so I am in favour of them.

@sevchenko you can use the word “alleged” if you wish but at this point I think if we’re honest the bias is undeniably real, studies were conducted a year or so ago that showed that only something like 11% of the time did media reports accurately report Corbyn’s positions and policies without distortion. A person would have to be unbelievably credulous and naive to think that a media predominantly owned by a handful of billionaires will be even handed and fair with a politician who wants to levy higher taxes on them, their friends and their advertisers.

Now I can’t make you give a fuck about that but for a democracy to truly function properly you need candidates to be given a much fairer shot than that. A television debate is the best way to somewhat level the playing field because the media are not going to suddenly start reporting fairly on Corbyn.

That’s true, although their freight rail is second to none. I’ve been on the Amtrak and that wasn’t too bad, and the trains going into Chicago are decent too. I’m just shocked a country as big as the US doesn’t have a bullet train like Japan, Spain (viva El renfe) or France. The UK really needs a nationwide bullet train.

Obviously the right wing press will have a field day with it, but hey the Evening Standard had a demon eyed Jeremy Corbyn with the headline - is this the most dangerous man in Britain, plastered all over it, and that was yesterday before the manifesto was even released. He could have copied and pasted the Tory manifesto and it would still be the same hatred and loathing. Even Paddy Ashdown is calling it the Hugo Chavez Manifesto. And then he went on to say the Libs would spend even more, the fucking prick.

The British press have a weird fascination with communism. They even called Ed Miliband ‘Red Ed’ ffs. It’s kinda weird for a country that never actually experienced it. Then again we’re also obsessed with Nazi Germany as if it’s on our doorstep.

Don’t expect any genuine left wing change to be possible in this country any time soon. Only when people get fed up with the smearing Sun and Mail will their ever be a fair debate.

The sad acknowledgment is that we’re not really fighting for this election. The good news is that Corbyn should secure parity or improvement on Milliband’s effort, and therefore keep the left in play, which the country is really going to need, and this manifesto, though by means radical in real terms is incredibly radical by the standards of contemporary Britain, so political debate in this country will be different and more meaningful for decades to come thanks to Jezza. We should hopefully do well enough to properly change the Labour Party as well.

A shadowy operation involving big data, billionaire friends of Trump and the disparate forces of the Leave campaign heavily influenced the result of the EU referendum. Is our electoral process still fit for purpose?

I’d like to know if there was another referendum on Europe, how the vote would go.
I think people who voted leave, on the basis we were going to use the billions saved, on public spending, would changer their vote.
I have spoken to a few people who said they wouldn’t vote leave again.
The public were conned very easily by shysters like Farage and Johnson.

TV debates are incredibly flawed. It’s simply a battle of perception. You cannot reduce serious questions on policy to two minute snippets. Two leaders arguing and shouting over each is not a effective way of scrutiny or a way to present viable choices to the electorate. The process often comes across as unauthentic because it is. Are candidates really speaking their mind? Or rather regurgitating statements well rehearsed in the days before? Even then a good or bad performance in a TV debate should mean absolutely nothing to a well informed voter. I cannot stress this enough

Coverage of the debate itself is amplified by the ‘biased’ media the next day. Morning papers, morning radio and morning news and TV programmes are key commercial periods which draw the most listeners/viewers/readers. Doesn’t that kinda contradict your point about TV debates having minimal opportunity for media bias? If Corbyn has a poor performance or has one slip its’t it likely sensationalized by the ‘biased’ media the next day?

We have an electorate of roughly 46M, the debate itself is unlikely to draw more than 11M viewers average audience (not sure about repeat viewers) and of that 11M watching you’ll have people who will vote Con/Lab/Lib/SNP/Gre etc regardless of their leader or any other leader’s performance during the debate. Is the audience is really that large? There’ll be people watching who won’t value a TV debate as a viable source to affect their views. The people who can be potentially swayed through watching the unedited and unbiased version is a relatively small amount.

I’d argue that the Labour campaign and Corbyn is currently seeing a great amount of success with direct interaction with the public and public sector organizations, a considerable amount more success than May or the Tories will ever have in that area. I think these massive public rallies are the best way for Labour to get their message across unbiased, undistorted and to large numbers of people, it’s much more authentic and genuine platform to communicate with common people than a TV debate. I’ve been really impressed with the crowds at these public labour events. Not to mention these events are highly circulated and amplified by social media users, a platform which left leaning voters dominate.